Special Issue edited by Katrin Langewiesche with contributions from Anne Cornet, Jean-Marie Bouron and Hildegunde Schmidt.

The essays in this special issue analyse the role of women convents in the Catholic missionary enterprise in Africa and question the role of the latter in modern African societies. The example of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa (or White Sisters) allows us to analyze the general aspects of missionary dynamics: the sharing of gender roles during the evangelization of Africa, the exercise of power between foreign missionaries and African religious women, the changing of mission strategies and of the economic aspects of the mission institutes. The articles link anthropological and historical approaches. They highlight women missionaries as a research topic on its own, to understand the colonial and postcolonial societies, gender and racial relations, health and education policies, the professionalization of women, and also to capture the transformations of contemporary societies and the forms taken by globalization.